Heads may roll in the Delhi government soon as the Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung on Tuesday set-up a three-member committee to review around 400 files submitted by the AAP government for "infirmities and irregularities" and fix responsibility of officials for suspected lapses.
The files were submitted to Raj Niwas following the August 4 Delhi High Court order dismissing the AAP government challenge to the LG’s superiority in administrative decisions in the Union Territory.
“On preliminary scrutiny of these files, it is found that over the last one-and-a-half years several decisions taken are in violation of Acts/Rules with attendant legal and financial implications.
“It has become necessary to examine them in depth and suggest forward action. Therefore, the Committee has been constituted,” the LG's office said in a statement.
Apart from determining if decisions taken by the AAP government without the approval of the LG are illegal, the Committee will “examine the role played by the public functionaries/officers of the GNCT of Delhi and of any other individual related with these violations and fix responsibility”.
The Committee’s mandate includes determining whether the decisions taken in these files and the processes adopted were in violation of the Acts/Rules and the constitutional scheme for governance of Government National Capital Territory of Delhi.
It will also determine, within six weeks, whether such violations were wrong, illegal and deliberate acts of omissions/commissions, said a Raj Niwas statement.
The Committee comprises former CAG V K Shunglu, former Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami and ex-Chief Vigilance Commissioner Pradeep Kumar.
The panel was formed a day after the LG shifted two heads of departments – PWD and Health - hand- picked by the AAP government for its ambitious projects to build new classrooms and mohalla clinic.
Soon after the High Court judgment, the LG asked heads of departments to review instances where his approval was not taken.
The Committee has been asked to suggest "appropriate administrative/criminal/civil action as well as action for recovery of financial loss to the government exchequer, if any, by such wrong decisions against the public functionaries /officers/individuals concerned".
The committee will recommend the course of action to be taken on each of the files/proposals including whether the decisions can or cannot be regularised by the LG, said Jung's office.
The panel will give submit its interim reports before the final report and outline the administrative, legal and financial repercussions of the regularisation/non-regularisation of the decisions.